


Klaus' therapy couch (time's tide will smother you)

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: And Klaus listens, Five gets to talk about all the shit he's been through, Gen, Good Sibling Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Post-Canon, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, post 2x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: After canon, Klaus and Five are at a couch in the Sparrow academy, waiting for the others to come out.Five looks like shit, so Klaus offers a place in his lap for his head and a friendly ear. A chance to be heard.Five takes it.Just Five unloading, being tired and sad, and Klaus being there for him.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 9
Kudos: 362





	Klaus' therapy couch (time's tide will smother you)

**Author's Note:**

> the song that Klaus sings at the end, and is mentioned, in case you want to listen, is "That joke isn't funny anymore" by The smiths

There was so much silence now that Ben's gone.

His Ben, at least. The ghost of Ben. There was a new Ben now, apparently but that clearly was not their Ben. It's some stranger wearing Ben's face, someone completely different. Not the one that had been his companion for so long.

So Klaus is getting used to the silence, to be truly on his own.

To hearing things in a new way, to making decisions on his own, but never forgetting what Ben would say. It was his time to leave, anyway. Klaus had known it for some time, and yet... He sighed, looked around.

Ben was not their Ben, the house was not their house.

It felt... odd.

They were out of place, and the world was wrong.

Klaus wasn't taking it as bad as some of the others. His world had always been wrong, a bit too different, and ever changing depending on the substance he was high on at the time. Sometimes it was coke, sometimes it was meth, sometimes was the intoxicating love and obedience from the children. But it changed, always changed.

So yeah, he knew it was Ben's time to go, and hey the rest of them had all made it, so even if they were in some other timeline where they didn't have a home, Klaus was calm. They stopped the end of the world twice, they could do this too.

The rest.. were not as calm. Diego had gone to look for Grace, Vanya "to get some information on this new reality and some air" and Allison and Luther were in the old man's office, seeing what info they could get from him.

And just outside were Klaus and Five, on a big comfy sofa just in front of the office, on the other side of the hallway, a waiting room of sorts. Klaus was in a corner, loing himself in the details

Five had his head on his hands, and looked... Well, he looked awful. He was pale under the grime and blood, and you could see just how exhausted he was from a mere look in the eye.

"Five. You're tired as shit, and yet, not sleeping, when it would be a great time for a nap. Why don't you put your youthful head in mine lap and tell me what's bothering you."

Five just furrowed his brows, looked with something between confusion, longing, anger. He was complicated, Five, always had been, bust so was Klaus.

"Come on, buddy" Klaus said, patting his thighs. "You just saved the world again, you can rest for a bit."

And then, miracle of all miracles, slow and tiredly as if he were 90 instead of 60 on a body of thirteen, Five took off his shoes, and incredibly lay down on the couch, with his head on Klaus' lap, bright eyes looking at some point on the ceiling.

And.... no, it couldn't be? Could it?

"I fucked up. Again" Five said, small, half choked, as (yes, it was!) a couple of tears fell from his eyes, each falling to a side.

"Hey, Five, dude, no! How did you fuck up? We're all alive! There's still a world around us, even if it's a bit wonky. Herzlichen glückwunsch, liebling."

"I wanted to get us home. We had a home before... I fucked up and scaterred us. If I had done it properly..."

"Sssssssshhhhhhhhh" Klaus put his finger on his brother's mouth to shush him, taking advantage of his privileged position. "None of that, old man. You saved our asses! I mean, I certainly hadn't seen funky hat lady in the barn and she was coming for all of us."

"Yeah, I didn't see her either."

"But... you did. You disarmed her."

"Not the first time. The first time she killed everyone, and then Lila. Shower of bullets, everyone dead, again. And then the Swede came to finish me off as I lay bleeding to death. But because none of the bullets got my heart or my brain I managed to travel back in time just a little bit, until before the Handler showed up, and I stopped her."

"You went back in time with gunshot wounds in you?"

"Three."

"That must have hurt like a bitch!"

"It did. Raw fiery agony in each fraction of a second. Just breathing hurt so much I could barely stand it and using my ability like that...But you all undied again. I mean..."

More tears. Klaus was running a hand trhough his hair, while Five just... melted. He really had to be breaking down to open up like this, but who could blame him?

"I... I really did all I could, Klaus. And I... people kept shooting at me, and beating me up, Lila, my other self, the Swedes, even baby Pogo attacked me... "

".... I mean, I know you can be a bit mean, but that sounds like a bit of overkill..."

"... Just today, I got shot at again, and was buried in bricks and knocked out by a damn frying pan, and almost fatally gunned down..."

"... no wonder you're so tired. It's your blood, ins't it? All this. We're so used to you having having other people's blood on ya, I don't know if we asked..."

"...but it was supposed to be worth it, you know, Klaus? We would be alive and together, and the world would be there, and... home.... a happy ending."

Klaus wiped away the tears.

"I get it. You must be so awfully tired after this last week...."

"Last two weeks. I didn't have a couple of years to unwind in the past, Klaus. I went from preventing one apocalypse to seeing another. And then being shot at, again."

"How are you even... functioning?"

"Survival instinct, I guess? That's how I made it in the apocalypse. And you know what, Klaus? I'm used to pain. So used to it. Have you ever malnutrition so bad that you couldn't walk? Been so close to total starvation that you can almost smell death? Have you inhaled so much ash, no matter how much you guarded yourself, that you cough blood every night for months coming? I had some very bad years on my own, you know, in the apocalypse. Time's tide will smother you, like they said. You've been through some shit, Klaus, I'm sure you get pain."

"I... I do." Klaus hadn't expected such an intense and heavy conversation when he'd invited Five to his lap, but really.

This was someone who'd lived in isolation for decades, and when he escaped it had been to murder and brainwash and then he escaped back to the family he'd been longing for.... And he got shot at and knocked out by a frying pan.

He was crying again, silent tears as he spoke.

"We know pain, in many forms. And you know what, Klaus, I can take the pain. I can take the nightmares, and the goddamened flashbacks and... It all had a meaning, you know, I kept thinking that one day we would fix the apocalypse and go back... to life. And Vanya would play the violin, and Allison would see her daughter and I would... I would breathe, because I did part my part, and now..."

There was a little sob. A little wobble on his lower lip. Fuck.

"It never ends, Klaus. I can't ever fix it, I can't.... Do you know how hard it has been for me to keep it together these last few days? Knowing that I had brought an apocalypse where it didn't belong, where there never was one? That I had killed all those people? Seeing it? Seeing you, again....dead..."

These was taking a turn for the worse. Venting was a good thing, especially for someone as closed up as Five, but now he was olny hurting himself. Klaus needed to turn this around.

"But you did it! Five, you did it! We're together, we're alive! And your messy time travelling gave me a chance to see Dave again, which was absolutely lovely. Now my last memory of him won't be of his dead body, but of his cute boyish smile as he sold me paint. And I've got you to thank for that. Maybe you've been saving the world and haven't had time to see it while we lived our lives, but we've been living our lives thanks to you, Five! Give yourself some credit!"

"I try to... I try to be okay, you know? I'm finally out of that hole, and hey, now even the Handler is gone, and I try to see the silver lining, keep thinking of plans, call you names, try to coninue living... And I wish I could laugh... but the joke isn't funny anymore."

Klaus half smiled. They used to exchange records when they were kids, Five could smuggle them to hideyholes in the house that dad didn't seem to know about, and sometimes they would just stay hours hidden in some secret cupboard, using pillows and blankets to soundproof it, smiling at each other over the revelry, the crime (and how much Luther would hate that they were doing that) and the music.

And that song... Five had always liked that song, which Klaus didn't get, because it was a sad song, and Five wasn't a sad kid. He was cocky and resourceful and very good at handling his ability. He was also intelligent, maybe the most intelligent out of all of them.

Being intelligent comes with many good things, retorts, being resourceful, ways to get out of trouble, a bigger enjoyment of life, of things others couldn't understand. But it also meant that, because you could think critically, you could see better the injustice and the horrors around you. Maybe that was why Five was the nicest to Vanya, despite all of dad's efforts to isolate her, because he could see that she didn't eserve that, and that she was treated in an awful way.

And seeing bad shit constantly... It ate you up. Klaus was already incredibly fed up and he'd only lived for thirty something years, Five... Five must be exhausted. Beyond exhausted.

And then something occurred to Klaus.

"Have you slept at all, lately? Good, no nightmares sleep? Have you eaten anything solid in the last week?"

More tears, and some ironic smile,

"... couldn't get that fudge nutter..."

That was not an answer. But Klaus was not going to press him, and just kept running his hand through Five's hair, slowly, gently, rythmically.

"Look, Five, I can't promise you that things will ever go back to normal, that we'll get a home, anything like that - but. Maybe we'll always live in some sort of never fucking... adventure video game. But I do know that now we don't know of any hard deadlines, so maybe we can find a room, some Smiths records and get a couple of days off, yeah? Just some rest and music and maybe some more chats in the couch."

"I like the sound of that."

"You've done more than enough already, the others should do the hard work for once. And you can finally breathe, Five. After all those bad years. a lifetime alone. You saved us, buddy. You did it. Things can be good again"

Five drew a small- barely there smile and breathed. The tears were drying.

And so as he kept caressing his brother's overtired head, Klaus sang:

_"I've seen it happen... in other people's lives, now it's happening in mine, I've seen it happen...."_

Five fell asleep in his asleep in his lap, and Klaus felt at peace.

Maybe this house was not their house. That was not their Ben, and this was not the reality they thought they were coming back to.

But they had each other, and they could still dance, and get drunk, and just vent on a couch.

Five could finally sleep.

And so help him, if Luther got out of that room being the tiniest bit too loud Klaus was going to turn all his ghost bitches against him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thank for reading.
> 
> It was meant to be a nice "Five rests a bit in Klaus" thing, but it got a bit out of hand. Hope you enjoyed?? Doesn't seem likely tho. 
> 
> Anyways, comments would mean the world, so if you liked, you know you want to comment ;)


End file.
